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Stephen Chen

Eric Ng

Did you know that a 5G base station can be squeezed into a casing the size of a shoebox? It’s thanks to gallium, a soft, bluish metal that makes it possible.
The chipsets that generate powerful bursts of high frequency radio waves are not made with silicon, but gallium nitride.
They consume little electricity, produce little heat and can function comfortably at 800 degrees Celsius (1,472 degrees Fahrenheit), making bulky equipment for power supply and air conditioning redundant.
Gallium is one of the 35 technology-critical elements listed by the US government as a national security concern. Like rare earths, the global supply of gallium is under Chinese control.

China produced 390 tonnes of raw gallium last year, or more than 95 per cent of the world output, according to the United States Geological Survey.
China has become a super power in rare earth, rare metals and other dispersed elements, with increasing dominance over a wide range of sectors from ore to technology.
Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei has filed more than 2,000 patents related to gallium nitride, according to Google Patents. Nokia, Huawei’s major competitor in the 5G race, had more than 1,500 patents, while Ericsson had just over 400 filings.
Qualcomm, a US-based company and major supplier of 5G-based chipsets, had less than 1,000 patent filings.
“As the semiconductor industry shifts from silicon to gallium, China is preparing to take the lead position,” said professor Hao Xiaopeng, functional material researcher at the State Key Laboratory of Crystal Materials in Shandong University, Jinan.

Alexandra Feytis, an associate consultant at London-based industrial minerals consultancy Roskill Information Services, said although China’s dominance in gallium was not yet a major source of concern for other countries as the market was adequately supplied, it was likely to change in the long term.
“While China has kept increasing its primary gallium production, most other producing countries have reduced it,” she said, noting Kazakhstan had ceased production in 2013 owing to low prices, followed by Germany in 2016.
Rare earths are found in everyday items, from TVs to smartphones and fridges
“New promising applications requiring gallium have been developed during the last few years and we see among them the widespread roll-out of 5G networks.
“Therefore, gallium will certainly become of more interest over the next few years and it remains closely monitored by Europe and by the US, which both listed it as a critical mineral,” she said.

After a five-year decline until the end of 2016 because of oversupply, gallium prices in China started to recover in 2017. The following year global prices surged by 40 per cent, as a result of restocking by consumers.
Meanwhile, the military sector has been using gallium nitride in radars, high-power laser and spy satellites.
Rare earths a matter of national security, rather than economics
According to Hao, Chinese telecommunication companies such as Huawei are coming up with innovative technology to make the “wonder material” work for mass civilian applications.
5G is just the start.


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Commodities

Gallium: China tightens grip on wonder metal as Huawei works on promising applications beyond 5G

A Huawei engineer tests a 5G base station antenna at the company’s Songshan Lake Manufacturing Centre in Dongguan, Guangdong province. Photo: Reuters

B0BTJE Elemental Gallium. Image shot 2006. Exact date unknown. Photo:Alamy

Ryan Ding, chief of Huawei's carrier business group, holds a Tiangang 5G base station chipset, speaks during a product presentation in Beijing, Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019. Chinese tech giant Huawei announced plans to release a next-generation smartphone based on its own technology instead of U.S. components, stepping up efforts to compete with global industry leaders. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

US-China rivalry makes rare earths a matter of national security, rather than economics

A ball mill at the Mountain Pass mine in California operated by MP Materials, America's only rare earths producer. The miner ships all of its output to China because there is no refining capacity elsewhere in the world to handle its production. Photo: Bloomberg

(190520) -- GANZHOU, May 20, 2019 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, learns about the production process and operation of the JL MAG Rare-Earth Co. Ltd. as well as the development of the rare earth industry in the city of Ganzhou in east China's Jiangxi Province on May 20, 2019. Xi Jinping visited Jiangxi Province Monday on an inspection tour. (Xinhua/Ju Peng)

FILE PHOTO: Samples of rare earth minerals from left, Cerium oxide, Bastnasite, Neodymium oxide and Lanthanum carbonate are on display during a tour of Molycorp's Mountain Pass Rare Earth facility in Mountain Pass, California June 29, 2015. REUTERS/David Becker/File Photo

China goes all out to secure lithium, cobalt supplies – key to dominating the world electric car market

A child breaks rocks extracted from a cobalt pit in Lubumbashi in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Prices of the metal have jumped in the past two years amid uncertain supplies and stockpiling activities. Photo: AFP

Robin Goad, chief executive of Canadian cobalt mine developer Fortune Minerals Limited. Photo: Handout

scmp

Ciaran Roe, global head of metals pricing of energy and commodities information S&P Global Platts. Photo: Handout

A woman washes clothes near the Jiajika lithium mine in Tagong township in China's western Sichuan province on Aug. 9, 2016. Local Tibetan herders have protested against the mine, saying it has polluted the Liqi River and killed fish and yaks. Photo : Washington Post Photo by Simon Denyer

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China accounts for 95 per cent of the global supply of the soft, bluish metal
Huawei has filed for more than 2,000 patents related to gallium nitride



Alexandra Feytis, a consultant at Roskill Information Services, says the US and Europe will keep close watch on China’s dominance of the critical material as new promising applications are developed.


Gallium: China tightens grip on wonder metal as Huawei works on promising applications beyond 5G

China accounts for 95 per cent of the global supply of the soft, bluish metal Huawei has filed for more than 2,000 patents related to gallium nitride

China accounts for 95 per cent of the global supply of the soft, bluish metal

Huawei has filed for more than 2,000 patents related to gallium nitride